Psychology in sub‐Saharan Africa: Challenges, prospects and promises

Abstract

The experiences of African communities are significantly underrepresented in the current psychological literature as compared to those of Western European and North American communities. Professional psychology in sub‐Saharan African is either nonexistent or strongly modeled after practices in North America and Western Europe. The modeling of psychology in sub‐Saharan Africa on the North American and Western European experience is a result of the more extensive marketing of the Western cultural heritage around the globe by national governments, education institutions and international aid agencies vis a vis the marketing of alternative cultural heritages. It is also reflective of the historically unequal intercultural exchanges between Western and African cultural heritages and in favour of the former. A greater representation of the African experience in the psychological literature could add to the richness and global relevance of psychology.